Friday, June 3, 2011

I haven't written anything on here for awhile, and it's actually mostly due to the fact that I haven't had anything to write about and not because I'm lazy (though it is a little because I'm lazy, since I have about six partially written blog posts that I could have finished if I'd really wanted to). Which shouldn't be a problem since no one's forcing me to write anything, and frankly it would be a little weird if they were, considering the type of babble I usually post. Although, if someone was holding a gun to my head and making me write about plots to kill dolphins and being ganged up on spiders, then that would absolutely be something to write about.

But it is a problem. Because I suffer from a scientifically proven condition known as Writer's Guilt*. I could blame it on Catholic Guilt, based on the fact that I went to Catholic schools, but to be honest, my lack of guilty feelings were the biggest obstacle I faced when I went to confession so that I just ended up inventing things that I probably did but couldn't remember and definitely didn't feel guilty for. I also didn't feel guilty about lying to the priest, though if I'd thought about it I probably could have used that for my next confession to save me from making more stuff up. So even if I wasn't an atheist I was probably never cut out to be Catholic.

Whatever the cause, my Writer's Guilt is very real - I've even written about the profoundly terrifying effect it can have - and it extends to every writing project I undertake. I go through phases where I'm inspired to write and everything comes so incredibly easily that I can't actually not write to the point where it distracts me from anything else I attempt to do. Then it passes and I am left with unfinished projects that taunt me with all their lack of posts or dangling plotlines and I feel like I should be working on them even when trying to work on them just leads to me staring at a computer screen and checking Facebook and email every thirty seconds so that I'm at least doing something. And fiction is the worst. Because then there are characters who are stuck in limbo, waiting for me to send them on their way and for some unknown reason that is definitely no reflection on my own personality, many of my characters tend towards the violent and if I ever found myself in a situation where one of them came to life then I really don't think they'd be all that happy with me, especially since I seem to abandon them in the middle of unresolved and often stressful situations that can't be good to be stuck in for long periods of time. Really, it has to bad for their mental health and I am COMPLETELY RESPONSIBLE because I'm not writing them out of it.

So anyway, I wrote this to alleviate my guilt because it's easier than rescuing a fictional character from a bad situation.

*There's a 99.99% chance that it is not really scientifically proven and I did, in fact, just make it up, capitalising the first letters so that it looks legitimate. The .01% is to allow for the possibility that I accidentally named a real condition without knowing it was a real condition. I could do a quick Google search but really, that seems like a lot of effort to go to just to write this post.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

I have a friend who keeps hurting her back through no fault of her own. She'll be going along fine and then she'll just move ever so slightly and bam! she's thrown her back out. Then it'll start to get better and she'll have a good couple of days and then bam! out again. What's worse is that every time it happens she can't work and she's currently trying to save for both a wedding and a house and doesn't get sick pay because she's only employed on a casual basis. It's almost enough to make me believe that there really is a god and he really fucking hates her.

Basically my point is that every time she hurts her back she has legitimate cause to ask 'why?' and there doesn't seem to be an answer. I, on the other hand, tend to cause injury to myself through my own stupidity.

A couple of weeks ago I tried to pry an e-tag holder from my windscreen with my fingers. A plastic holder. That's been exposed to the sun through the windscreen for about five years and could therefore be reasonably expected to perhaps be a bit brittle. So probably to no-one's surprise, rather than managing to remove the holder from the windscreen, I instead broke the plastic and took a chunk out of my finger that still hasn't completely healed three weeks later and that didn't stop bleeding for about twelve hours. Also, I didn't actually find the missing chunk of finger so it's possibly still somewhere on the floor of my car. I wonder if I should warn passengers before they get in?

Then on Monday I over-reached for a medicine ball and even though my shoulder was already protesting from my forcing it to turn into a go-go gadget arm without first saying, 'go-go gadget arm', I nevertheless used it to pick up the medicine ball. Because I apparently felt that if I was going to injure myself I may as well do a decent job of it. And then, perhaps because it was getting better, I decided the best thing for it was most likely to continue to do push-ups and a prone bridge and other exercises that would put extra pressure on the injury. You know, for fun.

I would probably stop injuring myself if I just gave my actions a bit of thought before blithely undertaking them. But if there really is a god and he really does hate my friend, then I've a feeling that I wouldn't be his favourite person either, so really, why bother?